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Collapse
of the other 20:20 Blackmail
at the border |
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Pre-poll
bonanza
Dogma vs
reality
The
cliche clicks
Protect
farmers’ interests Grandmaster
with a mission Europeans
healthier than Americans
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Collapse of the other 20:20 THE Bharatiya Janata Party is bound to feel disappointed following Karnataka Chief Minister H.D. Kumara-swamy’s decision not to resign from the post on October 3 and transfer power to it. According to the power-sharing formula, the BJP and the Janata Dal (Secular) pledged to lead the coalition government for 20 months each. Under this agreement, Deputy Chief Minister and BJP leader B.S. Yediyurappa should have become the chief minister for the remaining 20 months of the government’s tenure. The chief minister-aspirant may still be hoping for the best but the Twenty20 game in Karnataka seems to be over with the refusal of the JD (S) to allow the BJP to bat. Ever since the coalition wrested power from the Congress, the going has not been smooth. Controversies and scandals always followed the government like a shadow. The biggest embarrassment for the government has been the Rs 150-crore mining scandal. Suspended BJP MLC Janardhana Reddy has alleged that Bellary’s illegal mining rackets had the Chief Minister’s backing. Worse, Tourism Minister Sriramulu filed an FIR in Bellary against Mr Kumara-swamy alleging that he conspired to kill him. The results of Sunday’s local body elections seemed to have changed the political equations in the state. Apparently, the JD (S) leaders feel that if the party retained the chief ministership for another 20 months, it would not only checkmate the BJP and the Congress but also help the party to do well in the Assembly elections. Naturally, the BJP is firm on the transfer of power with Mr Yediyurappa as the next chief minister. With the BJP having hardened its stance on Tuesday, it is doubtful how long the coalition would continue in office. Such is the atmosphere of mistrust and lack of confidence between the two allies that the Chief Minister himself and his party colleagues have even been questioning the logic and relevance of the 20:20 power-sharing formula. Even if there is a last-minute compromise between the two, the government is unlikely to last long. Since the Congress has rejected the JD (S) overtures to join hands with the party, the only solution to the current political crisis is early elections to the State Assembly. Let the people decide who should run the state.
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Blackmail at the border THE first day goods-laden trucks from India and Pakistan were to move across the Attari-Wagah border was supposed to be a celebratory occasion. However, it was marred by the violent protests by porters, who had been carrying the loads on their heads all this while. They saw this free movement as an attack on their livelihood. They, therefore, retaliated with stone pelting and worse. The movement of the trucks in both directions had to be halted. This was a clear recourse to unacceptable means. Yet, the porters were allowed to get away with the violence. The blame lies with the district administration which should have dealt with them effectively, knowing full well that the protests could have widespread ramifications and could even derail the improving trade ties between India and Pakistan. Ironically, there were similar protests on the Pakistani side too. This is a clear case of blackmail and must be resisted with full force at the command of the government. The porters may not want to realise that the truck movement would, in the long run, be in their interest as they would not have to undertake the backbreaking job of carrying heavy loads over a long distance. But if they are unwilling to see reason, that should not be licence for taking the law into their own hands. Tackling such protests with a firm hand is the government’s job. Such demonstrations are commonplace whenever an innovation is put in place. When bus services were started on local routes in Punjab some decades back, tonga owners had turned violent at many places, alleging that they were being deprived of their livelihood. If the government had succumbed to their pressure, their source of revenue might have remained intact, but the passengers would have been deprived of the comforts of a bus ride. When the computer was introduced in the mid-eighties, there was a hue and cry that the machine would deprive many of their source of livelihood.Today information technology of which the computer is an integral part is one sector where India has been doing well. While allowing the aggrieved parties to protest peacefully is one thing, acquiescing in blackmail and violence is quite another.
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Pre-poll bonanza PROMPTED by the standoff with the Left on the US nuclear deal, the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance seems to have started preparing itself for a mid-term poll. Indications are many. It has lined up several concessions for the poor in general and senior citizens, Muslims, farmers and students in particular. The concessions — some already announced — could not wait for the Budget in February. The Congress has formed a manifesto committee and inducted Rahul Gandhi as a general secretary. Whatever may have prompted the government to announce these sops, they are welcome, even if belated. Soon after announcing the extension of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act from 330 districts to the entire country from April 2008, the UPA government launched on Monday a health insurance scheme for families living below the poverty line in the unorganised sector and raised the wage eligibility limit for bonus for the organised labour. On Gandhi Jayanti day, Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram floated the ‘Aam Aadmi Bima Yojna’ in Shimla. Besides, a modified National Old Age Pension Scheme will come into effect on November 19, the birth anniversary of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. What is more, scholarships have been announced for students belonging to the minorities and pursuing technical and professional courses. While the Sixth Pay Commission report may not be yet ready, the government has released 6 per cent dearness allowance, the highest ever, to its employees and pensioners. There is nothing wrong with the pre-poll sops as all parties resort to this tactic to woo the electorate. The only problem is some of these schemes have a bearing on the state finances. The cash-strapped states will be under pressure to implement these schemes and, as a result, may sink deeper in the financial quagmire.
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I teach you the superman. Man is something to be surpassed. — Friedrich Nietzsche
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Dogma vs reality In
his hours of repose, Mr Prakash Karat must be harking back to his days as a student leader when he had his last encounters with elections. Students live in a bubble, with limited experience and limited access to diverse opinions, and yet high on energy, idealism and imagination. Dogma is of prime importance in such carefree days because of its alluring simplicity, which seemingly offers a ready explanation for all problems, however complex. And there is no need to tailor the doctrine to the exigencies of practical or, as some say, pragmatic politics. It is in the nature of university politics that the moderates take a back seat. They are regarded as no better than the moles of the opposing side, trying to undermine the conviction of the faithful with their dubious caveats. If only to fob them off, fiery rhetoric and hardline postures are a must. In contrast, politics at the higher levels is vastly different, especially where a makeshift coalition is in charge of governance. Tub-thumping perorations have no place in such essentially opportunistic arrangements where ideals play a minor role. Rhetorical flourishes are regarded, therefore, as signs of immaturity and bigotry. Instead, what is required is enormous patience and an ability to coerce — and mostly cajole — foes-turned-friends (who may turn foes again) into pursuing a line which may not be to their liking. Compromise, therefore, is the order of the day. For the Left-wing dogmatists, this process of give-and-take — one step forward, two steps back — is particularly galling since it involves yielding ground to what the communists describe as bourgeois-landlord parties with their “reactionary” views. For much of their lives, however, the Indian communists pursued the inflexible norms of student politics. The reasons were, first, that they were out of power for the first two decades after Independence and, therefore, did not have to act with any sense of responsibility, especially because there seemed little hope at the time of their gaining power in the near future. The second reason was their belief in the infallibility of their doctrine, which was historically destined to conquer the world. And the third was that when they finally reached the corridors of power, they thought that they had a popularly mandated licence to break the system from within. Although the comrades first assumed office through the ballot box in Kerala in 1957, they did not seem to have had the time — or perhaps the gumption — to begin subverting the system there. Instead, this attempt was made in West Bengal 10 years later when a section within the CPM interpreted their entry into Writers Buildings, the seat of the government in Kolkata, as the sign to begin the “revolution” in real earnest. Hence, the armed uprising, albeit with bows and arrows, in Naxalbari. But that wasn’t the only instance of an immature, student-like approach to politics. Although a larger group of Marxists distanced themselves from the Naxalites, who formed their own party in 1969, the former continued to behave as unruly students when they targeted the capitalists — their designated class enemies — and drove them out of the state. Arguably, it is only now that the mentality of a typical student among the comrades is being supplanted by a more mature attitude, but only in West Bengal, not in Delhi. Nothing demonstrates this change of stance more than the recent observations of Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharjee, which directly contradict standard Marxist formulations, which are routinely articulated by the so-called “rootless intellectuals” of the party in the national capital. His latest is his criticism of “blind anti-Americanism”, which has been the cornerstone of communism from the time of the Cold War when the Soviet Union was battling against American “imperialism”. This is still the attitude of Karat and Co in Delhi, who have clarified that they consider imperialism to be as big a menace as communalism. Hence, their opposition to the nuclear deal since, they think, it will make India an American “stooge”, as the Left-leaning Guardian of London has said. But if the commissars in West Bengal think that there is no need to be paranoid about the US even if they are uneasy about the nuclear deal, the reason is that they no longer live in a bubble as they have to run a government. Their current focus, therefore, is on wooing capitalists, including those from the US, in order to undo the damage caused to the state’s industrial landscape by the earlier flight of capital. This preference for the private sector is, of course, heretical in the eyes of orthodox Marxists. Hence, the acerbic comments of a veteran comrade, a former Supreme Court judge V.R.Krishna Iyer, who was also a minister in E.M.S. Namboodiripad’s government in Kerala. Justice Iyer has said that “Buddhadev really has nothing to do with Marxism, and there is no scope to correct his course any more. He had no qualms about owning up to his capitalist inclinations. Karat should finish him off politically, if he has the guts. Corporate brand building could have no place in socialism”. Again, as in student politics, it is possible to see the disjunction between dogma and reality. The reality is that there is no socialism in West Bengal. Instead, as Bhattacharjee has clarified, the government is trying to rebuild the industrial sector within a “bourgeois” framework, which leaves little room for communist fantasies. Besides, as the heretic has also said, “private capital is the only way forward — socialistic alternatives look good on paper but are not practical alternatives”. There is another reason why Mr Karat cannot purge him — Stalinist-style. The reason is that West Bengal virtually runs the CPM monetarily, if not ideologically, because the party’s three decades in power in the state has contributed enormously to its coffers. This cannot be said of Kerala where the Marxists have been in and out of power, and Tripura is too small to play the role of the CPM’s banker. This is another aspect of politics which is beyond the ken of student politics - or former companions of Namboodiripad - since their life in an illusory world makes them oblivious of the business of being in public life. Mr Bhattacharjee, who is a “model” chief minister in Dr Manmohan Singh’s view, may have edged away from Marxism because of his realisation (which he cannot admit) that capitalism, after all, has won the day. Yet, it is a reality which the government of another socialist, Evo Morales, in distant Bolivia has acknowledged. According to Bolivian Vice-President Alvaro Garcia Linera, “socialism for us is an ideal for the very long term. In the meantime, we will have Andean-Amazonian capitalism, but with greater equality and equity. Capitalism will continue, the market will continue, foreign investment will continue”. When the Delhi-based communists began supporting the Manmohan Singh government at the Centre, they played the dual role of trying to block economic reforms at the national level while allowing West Bengal to pursue its own pro-capitalist policies. But the nuclear deal has brought the Delhi comrades face to face with the moment of truth because accepting it will undermine their dogma while rejecting it is likely to entail a drastic reduction of their strength at the next elections. It is a dilemma which those reared on student politics cannot solve as it brings them face to face with life outside the
bubble.
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The cliche clicks Civil
maintenance is indeed a thankless job. More than the thanks you win of the persons you have attended is the wrath you invite of those in the waiting. The situation gets aggravated when the buildings are too old—almost having outlived their life. Whatsoever be the inputs, the old can’t be made new. Yet colony life has its own charm. Real demands and appeals arrive when a marriage is going to take place. The house occupant suddenly becomes aware of the shabby look of his house, uncut grass, dripping taps, charcoaled kitchen and a creaking door. Persistent ring of phone, even if I don’t pick it up first time, tells me that a marriage has arrived! Civil maintenance teaches you another thing. When you get a job done for a person, know that you have invited the colony for that job. People have an uncanny eye for what is happening in other’s house. Unluckily, I did that when I got the house of an officer painted on the eve of marriage of her daughter. A few days later, I had another request pending. “But you are going to the US to solemnise the marriage, aren’t you?” I asked. “Yes, I am, but shouldn’t the house look first-rate when I am away?” he replied. Next was a scaled-down demand. “Sir, I am asking you to just get my kitchen painted. It is almost black. We Indians…love fried things too much”. I called my people. “Let’s review the budget grant. It is not to be exceeded in any case. And essential items first. White-wash, painting has to be the last of all”. They nodded. A few days passed. A senior officer rang me up. “My son has arrived from the US. He is getting married. Can you do a favour?’ “Ask for anything, Mr Gill, except painting and whitewashing. I don’t have enough funds to spare for that.” “It is the lawn. The grass is too long. Can you tell someone…” “No problem, Mr Gill, my pleasure.” The job was done. Mr Gill was thankful too. Two days later, He rang up again. “Can you guide me on one thing?” “Of course,” I said, “What is it?” “Suppose you have to go out and you don’t have enough time to take a bath. What’ll you do?” That was an odd question. However, I kept my patience. “Moohn dho lavo, Gill saab. (Just wash your face!)” “That’s what I was saying,” Mr Gill beamed, “My son’s marriage is two days away. No time for a full whitewash. Can you get done just the front face of my house?’ The cliché clicked. I got the painting
done.
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Protect farmers’ interests Compelled
by the serious food grain crisis in the early and mid-sixties, the government of India put in place the system of minimum support prices (MSP) for agricultural crops. Special attention was paid to the food grain crops and within that to wheat and rice. The MSP carried no meaning unless a procurement system was also put in place. This approach stood us in good stead and provided the needed support to the adoption of high-yielding production technology for wheat and rice crops. Today, some two dozen crops are included in the MSP system, yet an effective procurement system operates primarily for wheat and rice, for which the Food Corporation of India is the nodal agency. For coarse grains, pulses and oil seeds the nodal agency is NAFED and for cotton, the Cotton Corporation of India. Since food security and access to food is one of the major concerns of the government and for this purpose public distribution system has to be supplied with food grains, the government is deeply concerned with procurement of wheat and rice and hence these two crops attract special attention. Therefore, the MSP for wheat as well as rice become of crucial importance for the farmers and their pressure groups as well as domestic consumers. They enter into the calculations of vote-bank oriented politicians. In order to provide a rational basis to the determination of the MSP, the government of India by an Act of Parliament constituted the Agriculture Prices Commission, renamed later as Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP). The commission was to include in its purview the estimation of cost of production of agricultural commodities as well. The costs that farmers incur are one of the important elements that is considered in the determination of the MSP. Yet this is only one of the elements, though a very important one. In cost calculations, social costs such as free or subsidised water and power are not counted. These costs are not compensated in any manner. Consequently, the issue prices remain low and this subsidy passes on to the consumers, without benefiting the farmers in any manner. There are several other considerations that enter into the calculations, such as projected demand and supply situation, available stocks, buffer stock requirements, international prices, adjustments required in production patterns, state specific production situations, affordability of the consumers, subsidy burden, inflationary impact etc. The CACP has the mandate to harmonise the interests of the producers as well as consumers and the need to bring about corresponding adjustments in production patterns of agricultural commodities. The consumer price index, wholesale price index or any other price index cannot be, therefore, an appropriate base with which the MSP can be indexed. If it was such a simple solution to the pricing problem, one part-time statistical assistant would have been enough to advise the government on the level of minimum support prices. There would have been no need for a commission for agricultural costs and prices. Even if such an indexing is done and input and output prices are weighted with the quantities of inputs used and productivity per unit of land respectively, it might surprise those who demand indexing that MSP/ procurement prices would work out to be lower than what had been given to the farmers in most of the cases. The cost of cultivation is calculated not be the Commission, but by the state Universities or Agro-centers, and sent to the Economic and Statistical Advisor (ESA) in the Ministry of Agriculture in the form of summary tables. The ESA works out the cost of production of every commodity state-wise and provides these estimates to the CACP. These day to day data are recorded through the field staff specially posted for the purpose in the selected villages. There can be no better way of estimation of these costs. Earlier, based on the recommendations of CACP, two prices used to be announced; one as MSP that was supposed to be announced before the planting/sowing starts and the other procurement price that may be announced before the start of the post- harvest arrivals in the market. The MSP is a statutory price at which it is mandatory for the government to lift any quantity the producers bring into the market. Here the government acts as the buyer of last resort, but the farmer is not obliged to sell his produce to the government agencies. He can sell his produce to any other buyer in the market, who may offer higher prices. The other price is the procurement price, which is not a mandatory obligation and the government can stop buying at this price any time. This system in essence allows free market in agricultural commodities with government as a buyer of last resort in the market to protect the interests of the producer-sellers. Yet, the government has been using many warranted and unwarranted tactics such as limiting the movement of produce, restricting or even banning the stock holdings, denying market credit to private players, banning exports, forward trade etc. These measures were used to keep the spot market prices below the minimum support prices so that government can procure the needed quantities at minimum support prices. These tactics and measures have been frequently used in case of food grains, especially for wheat and rice, in order to procure enough stocks for public distribution system. Later on, for wheat and rice crops, only one price, the MSP, started being announced, because this price was invariably higher than the market price. For other commodities, there was seldom a need to announce higher procurement prices, because the government did not need to buy those commodities and market prices prevailed higher than the MSP. Under the present scenario, it is now desirable to revive the system of announcing both the MSP and later on the procurement prices, specially for wheat and rice. Our pricing system is such that it can move one way, higher and higher and cannot be reduced or even held at the same level, under the influence of political pressure groups in our democratic system. Yet the supply and demand situation changes and volatile world prices often render the domestic prices out of alignment in the fast globalising international market. Therefore, it is desirable that the MSP should move on a secular trend with mild slope, but procurement prices announced in the post harvest period should be based on ground realities of the spot market in the context of global supply, demand and price situation. The MSP plus bonus if need be should become the effective procurement price. If a situation arises, the bonus can be reduced or even withdrawn because the minimum support price cannot be reduced even if the volatile world prices crash under market slumps.
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Grandmaster with a mission
The
world has an abiding image of Garry Kasparov. It is that of the plucky chess grandmaster who took on Anatoly Karpov in a marathon contest and won, becoming the youngest ever world chess champion at the age of 22. He was the challenger, the scrappy anti-government contestant engaged in a battle of the titans against the champion who had the favour of the Soviet establishment. Twenty-two years on, his hair now streaked with grey, Mr Kasparov is again the upstart, challenging the powers that be. He was chosen at the weekend as the candidate of the Other Russia opposition alliance, aiming to succeed Vladimir Putin as president. It would be tempting to describe the forthcoming political battle as the biggest championship match of Mr Kasparov’s life. But he knows it is not. Why would Russians elect to the presidency a man born in Azerbaijan to a Jewish father and an Armenian mother? The fact is, they won’t. As the whole of Russia knows, in the climate of government-controlled politics prevalent in the country, Mr Putin – constitutionally barred from serving for a third term as head of state – will be succeeded by the candidate of his choice. “The goal of the Other Russia is not winning elections, but to have an election,” said Mr Kasparov after he beat five other candidates to run as the presidential contender of the Other Russia, a loose coalition grouping. “We’re trying to force the regime to accept our rights to participate in free and fair elections, to agitate the Russian population and Russian public to support our ideas.” But taking on the system in Russia is a risky business, as other opponents of Mr Putin have found. Criticising the president and his acolytes can mean physical harm, forced hospitalisation or even death, which came suddenly for Mr Putin’s prominent critics Anna Politkovskaya and Alexander Litvinenko. Mikhail Kasyanov, a former prime minister sacked by Mr Putin who decided to run for the presidency, has been accused of corruption. Like Mr Kasparov, he has all but disappeared from state-run television. Risk-taking has been second nature to Mr Kasparov – who is protected by bodyguards when in Moscow – for as long as he has played chess. In the days of the Soviet Union, chess was a national obsession, with enthusiasts setting out their boards in parks. His talent for the game became clear at the age of five, in his native Baku, where his father, Kim Weinstein, taught him chess moves. Following his father’s death from cancer, when Mr Kasparov was seven, he trained at an academy run by the former world champion, Mikhail Botvinnik, and at the age of 12 had won the Azerbaijan championship. The same year, he adopted his mother’s Armenian surname, Kasparyan, but changed it to the Russian-sounding version of Kasparov. He became Soviet champion at the age of 18, after winning the world junior championship the previous year. But the match that brought Mr Kasparov’s genius to the attention of a broader public was the chess world championship, pitting him against Mr Karpov, that began in September 1984 in Moscow’s Hall of Columns. It was stopped after 48 games n the following February – by the Soviet chess federation, which claimed that both players were exhausted, just as Mr Kasparov was about to win against the champion who was 12 years older. Such a decision to abandon play was unprecedented in the game. Asked by The Boston Globe last weekend whether this was where his battle with the Russian authorities began, he replied: “Yes. I started by fighting the chess federation and wound up fighting the Soviet regime.” When the rematch finally took place in Moscow six months later, Mr Kasparov won the title. In 1996, he was the first world champion to win against Deep Blue, the IBM computer, as chess marched into the electronic era. But the world’s greatest chess player was losing his edge, despite remaining world number one between 1998 and 2003. In 2000, he lost to the Russian grandmaster, Vladimir Kramnik, after which, he confessed recently to The New Yorker’s editor David Remnick, “it wasn’t easy to contemplate coming back”. “I spent two years trying to recover my position, studying playing ... I never lost my desire, but I really need to be at a cutting edge,” he said. In 2005, after losing to Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria, he left competitive chess for politics. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Mr Kasparov told The Boston Globe, “in 1990 and 1991, I thought the game was over for communism and Soviet-style dictatorship. I didn’t plan to become a leader of opposition to the new regime. But when I recognised dictatorship was coming back, I gradually came to the conclusion that I had no choice.” So for the past few months, Mr Kasparov has been manning the barricades, or at least trying to, by launching the “marches of the dissenters” to challenge Mr Putin’s supremacy. But the demonstrations by the Other Russia coalition, which includes a motley range of activists from skinheads and nationalists to human rights campaigners and leftists, have been fiercely suppressed. The bottom line, according to Mr Kasparov, is that only the Kremlin-approved candidates will overcome the hurdles and be allowed onto the “sacred territory” of national television. Asked by Mr Remnick whether he feared for his life, Mr Kasparov responded: “I do. The only thing I can try to do is reduce my risk.” By arrangement with
The Independent
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Europeans healthier than Americans Costly
diseases, many of them related to obesity and smoking, are more prevalent among aging Americans than their European peers and add up to $100 billion to $150 billion a year in treatment costs to the US health-care tab, a new study says. The study by researchers at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health found higher rates of several serious diseases – including cancer, diabetes and heart disease – among Americans age 50 and older, as compared with aging Europeans. For example, heart disease was diagnosed in nearly twice as many Americans as Europeans ages 50 and older. More than 16 percent of American senior citizens had diagnosed diabetes, compared with about 11 percent of their European peers. And arthritis and cancer were more than twice as common among Americans than Europeans. The study published online Monday by the journal Health Affairs found that Americans were nearly twice as likely as Europeans to be obese (33.1 percent versus 17.1 percent ), and they also were more likely to be current or former smokers (53 percent versus 43 percent ). “We expected to see differences between disease prevalence in the United States and Europe, but the extent of the differences is surprising,” said lead author Kenneth Thorpe, a public health professor at Emory and former deputy assistant secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services. Thorpe said the findings suggest that “we spend more on health care because we are, indeed, less healthy.” The study has implications for the ongoing debate over health-care reform and attempts to illustrate the economic consequences of lifestyle choices often viewed as intensely personal. Does the Emory study mean that Americans are actually sicker than Europeans, or that their illnesses more likely to be diagnosed and treated? Both, the authors said. When it comes to cancer, the higher diagnosis rate appears to be due to more intensive screening in the US, they said. But higher rates of obesity-related diseases and conditions, such as high blood pressure, suggest Americans also are, indeed, sicker. It is the latest look at why the US spends more on health care than any of its European counterparts. In 2004, the year of data the Emory study examined, the US spent $6,102 per capita on health care – about twice that of the Netherlands and Germany and nearly twice that of France. The study concludes that the best way to trim US health-care spending – or at least curb its rate of increase – is to put Americans on a diet and encourage other measures aimed at preventing the diseases. Other studies have sought to explain the spending gap between the US and Europe by comparing factors such as capacity, access to technology and prices. Thorpe said he hopes the study helps shift the debate over health- care reform away from arguing about who pays for what to a focus on preventing diseases that affect the quality of life and run up costs. He said he would like to see the nation embrace obesity and disease prevention the way it targeted cigarette smoking. The US health- care system – driven by when and how providers get paid – does not promote prevention or effective and efficient disease management, Thorpe said. “We wait for people to get sick. They show up. We treat them. And doctors and hospitals get paid. That’s not a very good way for managing disease, “ he said. By arrangement with
LA Times-Washington Post
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